Boise State Joins Mountain West Conference

The college football realignment dance continued today, with Boise State University announcing it will join the Mountain West Conference, leaving their former home in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC).

This move makes sense on a number of levels. From a purely football standpoint, the Mountain West Conference (MWC) adds a major power in Boise State, which has compiled a 49-4 record over the last four years and has won a pair of Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowl games.

Boise gets to leave the WAC, which instantly boosts their title chances. The WAC conference was one of the weakest in college football top to bottom, and a lack of quality opponents kept an undefeated Boise (twice) and Hawaii out of the BCS title game.

Now, the Broncos are joining a conference, which includes powerhouses Texas Christian University, which went 12-1 last year and finished #6 in the country, losing to Boise in the Fiesta Bowl, Brigham Young University, which finished 11-2 and #12 and Utah, which is one year removed from an undefeated season of its own and didn’t result in a BCS Championship Game.

According to ESPN, WAC officials saw this move coming and they are already scouting replacements.

“I think everyone was anticipating and expecting it,” WAC commissioner Karl Benson said in a conference call earlier this week. “All the signals out there were pointing in the direction that any invitation would come today.”

In all likelihood, the MWC isn’t done when it comes to expansion, although they’re likely to not make another major set of moves until the Big 12 dissolves, which mostly hinges on what Texas feels like doing. The most likely scenario involves Big 12 powerhouses Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas A&Mleaving for the Pac-10 and the MWC having a chance to pick up the remaining teams.